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Dos and Don’ts of Therapy on the Go: Navigating the use of apps for mental health care

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It might be sur­pris­ing to think about brows­ing for ther­a­pists and order­ing up men­tal health care the way you can peruse a menu on Grub­hub or sum­mon a car on Lyft.

But over the last decade, dig­i­tal access to ther­a­py has become increas­ing­ly com­mon, in some cas­es replac­ing the tra­di­tion­al mod­el of in-per­son week­ly ses­sions between a ther­a­pist and client.

Apps for men­tal health and well­ness range from mood track­ers, med­i­ta­tion tools and jour­nals to ther­a­py apps that match users to a licensed pro­fes­sion­al. My team’s research focus­es on ther­a­py apps that work by match­ing clients to a licensed pro­fes­sion­al. [Read more…] about Dos and Don’ts of Ther­a­py on the Go: Nav­i­gat­ing the use of apps for men­tal health care

Fast Forward to 2040: How to prepare for the new era in brain enhancement that will change the way we think, work, and heal

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Decades from now when our aug­ment­ed brains have enhanced our cog­ni­tive func­tion and trans­formed near­ly every aspect of our lives, many of us will look back and won­der why we didn’t do more to pre­pare for these inevitable changes. Gov­ern­ment lead­ers may grap­ple with the run­away effects of AI and brain enhance­ment on geopol­i­tics. Com­pa­nies that fail to incor­po­rate neu­rotech­nolo­gies and BCI into their oper­a­tional flow could lose sig­nif­i­cant mar­ket share and be forced to scram­ble in an attempt to regain a foothold in an indus­try they once dominated.

Work­ers who don’t heed the warn­ings to re-skill or upskill may find them­selves out of a job as entire indus­tries dis­ap­pear. Grad­u­at­ing col­lege stu­dents may dis­cov­er their field of study is no longer rel­e­vant in the busi­ness world, leav­ing them unpre­pared for the chang­ing job mar­ket. Tech inno­va­tors could be caught up in fierce com­pe­ti­tion to snap up employ­ees from a very lim­it­ed tal­ent pool, dri­ving up the cost of inno­va­tion and ham­per­ing its devel­op­ment. And every­day cit­i­zens may be wrestling with the unex­pect­ed con­se­quences of unin­ten­tion­al­ly giv­ing away the rights to their neur­al data.

Rest assured, it doesn’t have to be this way. [Read more…] about Fast For­ward to 2040: How to pre­pare for the new era in brain enhance­ment that will change the way we think, work, and heal

May “industry review boards” contribute to the wider adoption of virtual and augmented reality for physical and mental health?

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Indus­try review boards are need­ed to pro­tect VR user pri­va­cy (World Eco­nom­ic Forum blog):

“It seemed like a game when Riley first start­ed the vir­tu­al real­i­ty (VR) maze … A month after play­ing the game, Riley was turned down for a new life-insur­ance pol­i­cy. Giv­en his excel­lent health, he couldn’t under­stand why. Sev­er­al appeals lat­er, the insur­ance com­pa­ny dis­closed that Riley’s track­ing data from the VR maze game revealed behav­ioral move­ment pat­terns often seen among peo­ple in the very ear­ly stages of demen­tia [Read more…] about May “indus­try review boards” con­tribute to the wider adop­tion of vir­tu­al and aug­ment­ed real­i­ty for phys­i­cal and men­tal health?

E‑therapy stepping up to fill mental health gaps

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etherapy.

Tele­health ven­dor seized oppor­tu­ni­ty from Kaiser strike (Health­Care Dive):

“When Kaiser’s men­tal health work­ers went on strike to protest what they claim is Kaiser’s pol­i­cy of under­staffing their facil­i­ties in order to boost their prof­its, it left a void for the thou­sands of patients who relied on Kaiser’s staff for men­tal health ser­vices. Act­ing as a real-time tes­ti­mo­ny to the pow­er of tele­health [Read more…] about E‑therapy step­ping up to fill men­tal health gaps

Upcoming Q&A on the Future of Brain Health to celebrate Brain Awareness Week

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Info­graph­ic based on 2011 Sharp­Brains Sum­mit’s Meet­ing Report

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, co-founder and CEO of Sharp­Brains, has been named a Young Glob­al Leader by the World Eco­nom­ic Forum, an hon­or rec­og­niz­ing the most dis­tin­guished lead­ers under age 40 from around the world.

Mr. Fer­nan­dez will dis­cuss “How to Retool Brain Health for the 21st Cen­tu­ry” via a one-hour vir­tu­al Q&A ses­sion host­ed live at SharpBrains.com on Fri­day, March 16 from 10 to 11a.m. US East­ern Time. The con­ver­sa­tion will be based on the Meet­ing Report from the 2011 Sharp­Brains Sum­mit, which gath­ered 250+ inno­va­tors worldwide.

“The way we do brain health is essen­tial­ly bro­ken,” he said. “We need a new cul­ture and toolk­it to empow­er sharp brains of all ages to take more proac­tive care of their brain.” [Read more…] about Upcom­ing Q&A on the Future of Brain Health to cel­e­brate Brain Aware­ness Week

The Business and Ethics of the Brain Fitness Boom — Part 1: The Business

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The recent dis­cov­ery that expe­ri­ence can change brain struc­ture and func­tion at any age has sparked numer­ous health, edu­ca­tion, and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty appli­ca­tions whose val­ue and lim­i­ta­tions we are only start­ing to grasp.

Brain fit­ness has quick­ly become a main­stream aspi­ra­tion among baby boomers and elders, pri­mar­i­ly in North Amer­i­ca. It has fueled a grow­ing inter­est in brain fit­ness class­es, brain fit­ness cen­ters, and brain fit­ness pro­grams, along with atten­dant oppor­tu­ni­ties and chal­lenges. An increas­ing num­ber of adults want use­ful tools to pro­tect cog­ni­tive health and performance—not nec­es­sar­i­ly to reverse aging—and what they are find­ing is an expand­ing and noisy mar­ket­place where they (and also pro­fes­sion­als) need to care­ful­ly eval­u­ate their own needs and the avail­able options (Fer­nan­dez and Gold­berg, 2009). [Read more…] about The Busi­ness and Ethics of the Brain Fit­ness Boom — Part 1: The Business